movie facts
You Can’t Take It with You is an example of a movie with a big idea that also entertains. If the idea is too grand or simply doesn’t fit in the world we have created, the audience may temporarily accept its premise to better enjoy the movie. It is a pleasant idea. Wouldn’t it be nice?
The ‘it’ in the title references money. It was written in 1936 as a Broadway stage play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Its huge popularity – it ran for 838 performances and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama – led to a hugely popular movie two years later. That movie would win the Oscar for Best Picture of 1938.
All of this occurred in the middle of the Great Depression. Money, or the lack of it, was at the heart of many American’s thoughts. In 1935, unemployment figures rose to more than 20 percent in America. What to do, according to Kaufman and Hart: Don’t worry about ‘it’.
Instead, learn ballet like young Essie Carmichael, although her instructor Mr. Kolenkhov admits she ‘stinks’. Or, collect stamps and go to the zoo like her grandfather, Martin (Grandpa) Vanderhoff, head of the clan. Or make fireworks in the basement like her father, Paul.
“How many of us would be willing to settle when we’re young for what we eventually get?” asks Grandpa. “All those plans we make…what happens to them? It’s only a handful of the lucky ones that can look back and say that they even came close.”
 
Can't Take It with You
Can't Take It with You
Can't Take It with You
Grandpa’s dictum is to do only what makes you happy, presumably if it does not hurt others, and to love your friends and family without judgement.
In the movie, directed by Frank Capra, Grandpa is played by Lionel Barrymore, and his gravitas guarantees you will at least listen to him, even if your bank account screams ‘necessity’ rather than fun. On screen, fun is the emphasis.
A rich boy (Tony), played by James Stewart, falls in love with Grandpa’s granddaughter (Alice), Jean Arthur. Tony knows his own family – headed by Wall Street banker Anthony Kirby
(Edward Arnold) — is in opposition to the Sycamore’s. He brings both families together in Act II to emphasize this. The results – police arrests and fireworks explosions down in the basement – eventually pull both families together in Act III with the realization that money is not everything (maybe) even though Grandpa hasn’t paid income taxes for 22 years and the tax man is at the door.
The happy ending is a mix of the rich (banker Kirby) coming to realize the error of money and the collective love of harmonica playing, accompanied by xylophone playing and (bad) ballet dancing.